FRIDAY the 13th - Friggatriskaidekaphobia

Friggatriskaidekaphobia is the name given to a phobia of Friday 13th,

a superstition that has existed for hundreds of ye... Read Morears in virtually every corner of the world.

Friday the 13th occurs when the thirteenth day of a month falls on a Friday, which superstition holds to be a day of bad luck. In the Gregorian calendar, this day occurs at least once, but at most three times a year. Any month's 13th day will fall on a Friday if the month starts on a Sunday.

A theory by author Charles Panati, one of the leading authorities on the subject of "Origins," maintains that the superstition can be traced back to ancient myth:

The actual origin of the superstition, though, appears also to be a tale in Norse mythology. Friday is named for Frigga, the free-spirited goddess of love and fertility. When Norse and Germanic tribes converted to Christianity, Frigga was banished in shame to a mountaintop and labeled a witch. It was believed that every Friday, the spiteful goddess convened a meeting with eleven other witches, plus the devil — a gathering of thirteen — and plotted ill turns of fate for the coming week. For many centuries in Scandinavia, Friday was known as "Witches' Sabbath."

Another theory about the origin of this superstition traces to the arrest of the legendary Knights Templar.  (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Friday_the_13th)

If there's one day you don't want to walk under ladders, break any mirrors, or run afoul of any hockey-mask-wearing lunatics, it's Friday the 13th. The day, which occurs one to three times every year, is synonymous with bad luck, and folks on the Web are eager to know how it got such a scary reputation.
The urban legend experts at Snopes.com offer several theories on why Friday the 13th is so feared. The site writes that "some of the more common theories link it to a significant event in the Christian tradition said to have taken place on Friday." The big examples include the crucifixion and Eve offering the apple to Adam in the Garden of Eden.
And then there's the number 13. Many buildings don't have a 13th floor; some airplanes don't have a 13th row. Clearly, many people are a bit worried about encountering the unlucky number in their daily routines. According to About.com's urban legend expert, the aversion to all things 13 may have begun when early humans were learning to count. "Primitive man had only his 10 fingers and two feet to represent units," this explanation goes, "so he could count no higher than 12. What lay beyond that — 13 — was an impenetrable mystery to our prehistoric forbearers, hence an object of superstition."

Another theory: Thirteen became feared because it represented femininity. Some believe priests vilified the number because it "corresponded to the number of lunar (menstrual) cycles in a year." That number was "revered in prehistoric goddess-worshipping cultures."

A 2001 column on Yahoo! cites UselessKnowledge.com with yet another theory. The "superstition stems from the events that took place on Friday, October 13, 1307. On that day, the pope of the Roman Catholic Church, in combination with the king of France, sentenced the Knights Templar to death and ordered the torture and crucifixion of their leader."
So many superstitions, so little evidence! To many, Friday is considered a day to be extra cautious, because bad things may happen with a bit more frequency as the work week winds down. And to others, the number 13 is incredibly unlucky for any number of perceived reasons. Combine the unlucky day of the week with the unlucky number, and you get a day that makes even the otherwise nonsuperstitious run for cover.
And really, it's not only the superstitious people who place credence in these theories. There was even a 1993 study published in the British Medical Journal on whether Friday the 13th is bad for one's health. About.com tracked down the study, which concludes with an ominous endnote: "Friday the 13th is unlucky for some. The risk of hospital admission as a result of a transport accident may be increased by as much as 52 percent. Staying at home is recommended."

Rate of accidents
There are conflicting studies about the risk of accidents on Friday the 13th. The Dutch Centre for Insurance Statistics (CVS) on June 12, 2008, stated that "fewer accidents and reports of fire and theft occur when the 13th of the month falls on a Friday than on other Fridays, because people are preventatively more careful or just stay home. Statistically speaking, driving is slightly safer on Friday the 13th, at least in the Netherlands; in the last two years, Dutch insurers received reports of an average 7,800 traffic accidents each Friday; but the average figure when the 13th fell on a Friday was just 7,500.However, a 1993 study in the British Medical Journal that compared the ratio of traffic accidents between Friday the 6th and Friday the 13th stated that there is a significant increase in traffic-related accidents on Friday the 13th. There are indications that there are more accidents on Fridays than average weekdays (irrespective of the date) probably because of alcohol consumption. Therefore it is less relevant for this purpose to compare Friday the 13th with any other 13th day of another month.

Nike Dunk High SB Custom Friday the 13th Jason Voorhees $129.99 (sale $89.99)

 Death's Wine - to be open Friday 13th

(Boticas,Portalegre,Portugal)

FINAL BLOG POST of B.C. writer who died of cancer

A B.C. blogger died on May 3, but not before leaving a final message to his family, friends and readers.

Derek K. Miller lost his battle with cancer in Burnaby, B.C. at 41. His final request to his family and friends was for them to publish this blog post - 'The Last Post' - and allow him to be the one to notify his readers of his passing. Miller wrote:
"Here it is. I'm dead, and this is my last post to my blog. In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote—the first part of the process of turning this from an active website to an archive."
Miller's final post went viral the same day it was posted, May 4, drawing three million visitors to his website. The message was prepared weeks in advance of his passing, as he and his family both knew his battle with colorectal cancer was not going to have a happy ending.
In the blog entry, he writes about his love for his family and friends, particularly his wife of 23 years, Airdrie and his two daughters, Marina and Lauren (or 'Lolo' as he calls her in one paragraph).
The final posts leading up to his death detail his struggle with cancer and the daily challenges he faced. He describes the importance of voting and the slow, pained walk he takes from his car to his local polling station. He extolls the wonders of Kraft Easy Cheese and Diet Cherry Coke, and is met with an outpouring of both products, typically available only in the U.S.
Miller's father, Karl, described his passing as an intimate and private moment at home, spent with those Derek loved. "He was proud of his blog and now it is his legacy," Karl Miller said in an interview with The Province.
"It connects him to the world and to his family, forever. We were there for him but Derek was comfortable sharing his thoughts with a worldwide community."
While 'The Last Post' was a message to all of the readers he had amassed in his 10 years as a blogger, the final words of the entry were to the woman who he calls his best friend and closest connection:
"I loved you deeply, I loved you, I loved you, I loved you."

Derek K.Miller

The last post

                                           

By Derek on May 4, 2011 7:51 AM| 143 Comments| No TrackBacks

 

Here it is. I'm dead, and this is my last post to my blog. In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote—the first part of the process of turning this from an active website to an archive.
If you knew me at all in real life, you probably heard the news already from another source, but however you found out, consider this a confirmation: I was born on June 30, 1969 in Vancouver, Canada, and I died in Burnaby on May 3, 2011, age 41, of complications from stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancer. We all knew this was coming.
That includes my family and friends, and my parents Hilkka and Juergen Karl. My daughters Lauren, age 11, and Marina, who's 13, have known as much as we could tell them since I first found I had cancer. It's become part of their lives, alas.

Airdrie

Of course it includes my wife Airdrie (née Hislop). Both born in Metro Vancouver, we graduated from different high schools in 1986 and studied Biology at UBC, where we met in '88. At a summer job working as park naturalists that year, I flipped the canoe Air and I were paddling and we had to push it to shore.
We shared some classes, then lost touch. But a few years later, in 1994, I was still working on campus. Airdrie spotted my name and wrote me a letter—yes! paper!—and eventually (I was trying to be a full-time musician, so chaos was about) I wrote her back. From such seeds a garden blooms: it was March '94, and by August '95 we were married. I have never had second thoughts, because we have always been good together, through worse and bad and good and great.
However, I didn't think our time together would be so short: 23 years from our first meeting (at Kanaka Creek Regional Park, I'm pretty sure) until I died? Not enough. Not nearly enough.

What was at the end

I haven't gone to a better place, or a worse one. I haven't gone anyplace, because Derek doesn't exist anymore. As soon as my body stopped functioning, and the neurons in my brain ceased firing, I made a remarkable transformation: from a living organism to a corpse, like a flower or a mouse that didn't make it through a particularly frosty night. The evidence is clear that once I died, it was over.
So I was unafraid of death—of the moment itself—and of what came afterwards, which was (and is) nothing. As I did all along, I remained somewhat afraid of the process of dying, of increasing weakness and fatigue, of pain, of becoming less and less of myself as I got there. I was lucky that my mental faculties were mostly unaffected over the months and years before the end, and there was no sign of cancer in my brain—as far as I or anyone else knew.
As a kid, when I first learned enough subtraction, I figured out how old I would be in the momentous year 2000. The answer was 31, which seemed pretty old. Indeed, by the time I was 31 I was married and had two daughters, and I was working as a technical writer and web guy in the computer industry. Pretty grown up, I guess.
Yet there was much more to come. I had yet to start this blog, which recently turned 10 years old. I wasn't yet back playing drums with my band, nor was I a podcaster (since there was no podcasting, nor an iPod for that matter). In techie land, Google was fresh and new, Apple remained "beleaguered," Microsoft was large and in charge, and Facebook and Twitter were several years from existing at all. The Mars rovers Spirit and Opportunity were three years away from launch, while the Cassini-Huygens probe was not quite half-way to Saturn. The human genome hadn't quite been mapped yet.
The World Trade Center towers still stood in New York City. Jean Chrétien remained Prime Minister of Canada, Bill Clinton President of the U.S.A., and Tony Blair Prime Minister of the U.K.—while Saddam Hussein, Hosni Mubarak, Kim Jong-Il, Ben Ali, and Moammar Qaddafi held power in Iraq, Egypt, North Korea, Tunisia, and Libya.
In my family in 2000, my cousin wouldn't have a baby for another four years. My other cousin was early in her relationship with the man who is now her husband. Sonia, with whom my mother had been lifelong friends (ever since they were both nine), was still alive. So was my Oma, my father's mom, who was then 90 years old. Neither my wife nor I had ever needed long-term hospitalization—not yet. Neither of our children was out of diapers, let alone taking photographs, writing stories, riding bikes and horses, posting on Facebook, or outgrowing her mother's shoe size. We didn't have a dog.
And I didn't have cancer. I had no idea I would get it, certainly not in the next decade, or that it would kill me.

Missing out

Why do I mention all this stuff? Because I've come to realize that, at any time, I can lament what I will never know, yet still not regret what got me where I am. I could have died in 2000 (at an "old" 31) and been happy with my life: my amazing wife, my great kids, a fun job, and hobbies I enjoyed. But I would have missed out on a lot of things.
And many things will now happen without me. As I wrote this, I hardly knew what most of them could even be. What will the world be like as soon as 2021, or as late as 2060, when I would have been 91, the age my Oma reached? What new will we know? How will countries and people have changed? How will we communicate and move around? Whom will we admire, or despise?
What will my wife Air be doing? My daughters Marina and Lolo? What will they have studied, how will they spend their time and earn a living? Will my kids have children of their own? Grandchildren? Will there be parts of their lives I'd find hard to comprehend right now?

What to know, now that I'm dead

There can't be answers today. While I was still alive writing this, I was sad to know I'll miss these things—not because I won't be able to witness them, but because Air, Marina, and Lauren won't have me there to support their efforts.
It turns out that no one can imagine what's really coming in our lives. We can plan, and do what we enjoy, but we can't expect our plans to work out. Some of them might, while most probably won't. Inventions and ideas will appear, and events will occur, that we could never foresee. That's neither bad nor good, but it is real.
I think and hope that's what my daughters can take from my disease and death. And that my wonderful, amazing wife Airdrie can see too. Not that they could die any day, but that they should pursue what they enjoy, and what stimulates their minds, as much as possible—so they can be ready for opportunities, as well as not disappointed when things go sideways, as they inevitably do.
I've also been lucky. I've never had to wonder where my next meal will come from. I've never feared that a foreign army will come in the night with machetes or machine guns to kill or injure my family. I've never had to run for my life (something I could never do now anyway). Sadly, these are things some people have to do every day right now.

A wondrous place

The world, indeed the whole universe, is a beautiful, astonishing, wondrous place. There is always more to find out. I don't look back and regret anything, and I hope my family can find a way to do the same.
What is true is that I loved them. Lauren and Marina, as you mature and become yourselves over the years, know that I loved you and did my best to be a good father.
Airdrie, you were my best friend and my closest connection. I don't know what we'd have been like without each other, but I think the world would be a poorer place. I loved you deeply, I loved you, I loved you, I loved you.

 http://www.penmachine.com/2011/05/the-last-pos

 ORBITUARY from "The Province"- a Vancouver, B.C. Newspaper:

'Derek doesn’t exist anymore': The last post from Vancouver’s Derek K. Miller

 

By Suzanne Fournier, The Province May 5, 2011

Derek K. Miller was a very private man, even if his own “last post” left his loved ones grieving along with thousands of people who knew him only through his highly public persona as “penmachine.com.”
Miller wrote on an entry posted Wednesday: “Here it is. I’m dead and this is my last post to my blog.
“In advance, I asked that once my body finally shut down from the punishments of my cancer, then my family and friends publish this prepared message I wrote.”
Miller died at 6:40 p.m. May 3 as he wished, at home, in the Burnaby duplex he shared with wife Airdrie Hislop Miller and their daughters Marina, 13, and Lauren, 11.
A close friend published his last blog entry, as requested.
Miller wrote: “I was born on June 30, 1969 in Vancouver, Canada, and I died on May 3, 2011 of complications from stage 4 metastatic colorectal cancer.
“We all knew this was coming.”
His parents Karl and Hilkka Miller share the duplex and a porch but respect Derek’s family’s privacy so strongly they always phone before dropping by.
Karl Miller told The Province Wednesday his son’s death was both deeply intimate and widely shared, as Derek had wished.
He died with family and dear friends present just before his eloquent self-penned obit went viral.
“He was proud of his blog and now it is his legacy,” said Karl Miller. “It connects him to the world and to his family, forever. We were there for him but Derek was comfortable sharing his thoughts with a worldwide community.”
Online visits to Miller’s blog, Twitter and Flickr were so heavy, despite his careful advance planning, that those Internet sites kept crashing.
Friends and followers posted new copies of his “last blog” over and over.
Celebrities Ashton Kutcher and Conan O’Brien read Miller’s posthumous post.
“This wouldn’t have been possible even 10 years ago, there was no Facebook or Twitter or blogs,” said Miller.
Derek started as a child to play in computer labs with his father.
A musician, writer and “passionate geek,” Derek started a blog more than a decade ago, while Jean Chretien was Prime Minister, Bill Clinton the U.S. president and the World Trade Towers still stood.
“I haven’t gone to a better place, or a worse one,” he wrote. “I haven’t gone anyplace, because Derek doesn’t exist anymore. As soon as my body stopped functioning, and the neurons in my brain ceased firing, I made a remarkable transformation: from a living organism to a corpse, like a flower or a mouse that didn’t make it through a particularly frosty night.”
Still, Miller found joy in life. “The world, indeed the whole universe, is a beautiful, astonishing, wondrous place. There is always more to find out.
“I don’t look back and regret anything, and I hope my family can find a way to do the same.
“What is true is that I loved them. Lauren and Marina, as you mature and become yourselves over the years, know that I loved you and did my best to be a good father.
“Airdrie, you were my best friend and my closest connection. I loved you deeply, I loved you, I loved you, I loved you.”
Miller spun off his blog into a chronicle of the cancer diagnosed in 2007, although he kept up his interests and it never became just a medical blog.
“I’m at the point with my cancer now that the car has finally bumped down off the pavement and we’re driving on gravel now,” Miller wrote in April. “The end of the road is somewhere up ahead, not too far, and I’m not going back to smooth, speedy travel, ever.”
He and his wife hosted a “living wake” at the Waldorf Hotel.
Soon he was confined to bed although on May 2, federal election day, he wrote: “If I can freakin’ physically drag myself out of the car to vote, then you can too.”
By 5 p.m. Wednesday, Derek Miller's own obit, his "last blog," was trending as a Twitter topic in Vancouver.
CBC paid tribute to Miller at 5:40 p.m. on Stephen Quinn's radio program "On the Coast."

Read more:
 http://www.theprovince.com/Derek+doesn+exist+anymore+last+post+from+Vancouver+Derek+Miller/4728571/story.html#ixzz1M0gMtcsE

NURSES WEEK 2011 - "Hey Nurse, Thanks"

“HEY NURSE… THANKS”

“Hey Nurse!”

          It was a man’s voice, loud and gruff, coming from room 254. I was taking a shortcut through the telemetry unit after another busy day in the critical care unit. These weren’t my patients, so I keep going.

          “Yo, blondie.”

          I stopped and looked around. No other nurses were in  sight, so I went to the doorway of room 254 and glanced in. A large man, with a big, friendly face was sitting up in bed. He spoke before I had a chance to open my mouth.

“Do you remember me? You were my nurse on the fourth floor.”

“I’m sorry, sir, but I work in the critical care unit. You must have me confused with someone else.”

I smiled, wished him a good afternoon, and turned to go on my way. His booming voice stopped me again.

“No, wait a minute.” He start snapping his fingers. “You name is… oh, let me think…”

I turned around to see him looking up at the ceiling, a half smile on his face. Then he looked back at me.

“Jackie,  right? You’ve got a long blond ponytail, don’t you?”

I was dumbfounded.

“Yes’” I said, peeking at my chest to make sure I’d taken off my name tag. (I had.) I reached back and touched the tightly braided bun on the back of my head. Then I studied his face, looking for something that might trigger my memory. His eyes were cool, blue and shine. Curly salt-and-pepper hair framed his face.

“I’m sorry. I don’t work on the fourth floor, and I just don’t remember you.”

“That’s all right, Jackie. I am just glad I got to see you again. You came into my room about three weeks ago. My heart stopped dead on me and you put those paddles on my chest. I remember you shouting out all those technical sounding words, telling everybody to clear the way. Then you took those paddles and you shocked me back to life.”

Suddenly it dawned on me: I had been in his room for a code I’d forgotten about. He was a different person then – unresponsive, with dilated pupils and a red and blue face.

“Who told you I helped you that way?” I asked, my curiosity pulling me into his room.

He laughed and looked back up the ceiling.

:Nobody told me. I was up on that ceiling there watching you. That’s how I saw your long, blond ponytail. And when you turned to look at the monitor, I saw your beautiful face. I’m so glad I got to see you again.”

He looked back down at me, his smile gone. I could see he was struggling, with his emotions.

“I wanted to say thanks. Thanks so much…”

Every time I pass room 254 now, a warm feeling, wells up inside me. I am grateful for the shortcut I took that day, and for the fact that I answered the call  of “Hey Nurse.”

Jackqueline Zabresky, R.N.

“The supernatural is the natural not yet understood” – Elbert Hubbard



Nursing Week is celebrated each year throughout Canada during the week of Florence Nightingale’s May 12 birthday. This year, Nursing Week 2011 runs from Monday, May 9 to Sunday, May 15. It is a time to recognize the year-round dedication and achievements of registered nurses and registered practical nurses, and to increase awareness of their contributions to the well-being of Canadians.
The Ontario Nurses’ Association (ONA) 2011 Nursing Week theme is Value the Invaluable. It’s the core message of our very successful campaign that makes a light-hearted comparison with sports stars who are celebrated, to nurses who are truly the heart and soul of health care.

COCA-COLA * 125 YEARS *

1886 – What’s in a name?
When John S. Pemberton created the formula for his new drink in 1886, his partner and bookkeeper, Frank M. Robinson, suggested the name Coca-Cola, thinking that ‘the two Cs would look well in advertising’. He wanted to create a unique logo to go with it, and experimented writing the company’s name in elaborate Spencerian script, a form of penmanship characteristic of the time.

Dr John S Pemberton invented Coca-Cola on 8 May 1886 in Atlanta, Georgia. He tried it out on customers at his local chemist, Jacobs' Pharmacy, where it proved so popular it immediately went on sale at five cents a glass. It was Dr Pemberton's friend and business partner, Frank M Robinson, who came up with the name Coca-Cola and wrote it out by hand in the Spencerian script that we still use as our logo. Learn more about the history of our company.

The Root Glass Company of Indiana created the famous Coca-Cola contoured bottle in 1915. It was designed to help Coca-Cola stand out from other drinks at the time, and the design brief was to ensure that the bottle was recognisable even in the dark, or if it was broken. Some people think the shape was inspired by a woman's body.

Whatever the inspiration for its shape, the Coca-Cola bottle later received a rare distinction for packaging when, in 1977, it was granted registration as a trademark by the United States Patent Office. It's a classic piece of packaging design that has stood the test of time. Learn more about the history of our company.

The white swirl - known as the Dynamic Ribbon - was part of a graphic re-design that we brought in at the end of 1969. The design for Coca-Cola in the 1970s was based on a bold, dramatic curve, reflecting the unique contour of the bottle. Learn more about the history of our company.

The contour bottle design was inspired by the curves and grooves of a cocoa bean.

Today, it's one of the most recognised icons in the world - even in the dark.

Blues players have been known to use necks from Coca-Cola's contour bottles to play slide guitar, coining the term 'bottleneck slide'.

There are 1.6 billion servings of Coca-Cola sold every day

MOTHER'S DAY

Mothers cannot do it all
But surely do they try.

Mothers hear the angel's call,
To comfort all who cry.

Mothers for themselves may fall,
For others they will fly.

Mother's bear the weight of all,
For their children, they would die.

A Mother's gift extends beyond
All bounds of time and space.

Her lovingness and nurturing
Make Earth a peaceful place.

(My Godmother - raised me; my Mother gave birth to me)

The Vocabulary of a Mother

• Dumbwaiter: One who asks if the children would care to order a dessert.
• Feedback: The inevitable result when the baby doesn't appreciate the strained carrots.
• Full Name: What you call your child when you're angry with him.
• Grandparents: The people who think your children are wonderful even though they're sure you're not raising them right.
• Independent: How we want our children to be for as long as they do everything we say.
• Puddle: A small body of water that draws other small bodies wearing dry shoes into.
• Show Off: A child who is more talented than yours.
• Whodunit: None of the children who live in your house.
• Bottle-feeding: An opportunity for Daddy to get up at 2 am.

The Origin of Mother's Day In America

There are two claims for the origin of Mother's Day in America. The person responsible for the modern form of this celebration was Anna Marie Jarvis, whose mother died on May 9, 1905.

A memorial service was held on May 12, 1907 in the Andrew's Methodist Episcopal Church in Grafton, West Virginia. However, the first organized service was held on May 10, 1908. Anna, with the help of John Wanamaker, campaigned to establish Mother's Day as a national holiday in the USA.

On May 8, 1914, Congress passed a law which designated the second Sunday in May as Mother's Day, and the next day President Woodrow Wilson announced the first national Mother's Day. In this era it was a day for American citizens to honor those mothers whose sons had died in war.

It was Anne Marie Jarvis who created the association between the carnation and Mother's Day. The present tradition is to wear a red carnation if you mother is living and a white one if she is deceased.

An earlier claim to have established Mother's day in 1868 involved another Ann - Ann Jarvis, and this too had the theme of uniting mothers who had lost a son in the Civil War. However, this was called not Mother's Day but Mother's Friendship Day and its purpose was to reunite families that had been separated, or divided by the American Civil War.

For a long history of Mother's Day:
 http://www.theholidayspot.com/mothersday/history.htm

316 days until Mothering Sunday on 18th March 2012

A VIEW OF PORTUGUESE IN THE WORLD

I found this video very fascinating and informative:

O que os Finlandeses não sabem sobre Portugal

<embed src="http://rd3.videos.sapo.pt/play?file=http://rd3.videos.sapo.pt/HfIpQ9Vrf5ELRZg9vimK/mov/1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" width="410" height="281" allowFullScreen="true"></embed>

O vídeo apresentado pelo Presidente da Câmara de Cascais no fim das Conferências do Estoril. /

Presentation by Cascais City Mayor at Estoril Conference

From: http://videos.sapo.pt/HfIpQ9Vrf5ELRZg9vimK

FEDERAL ELECTIONS 2011

ELECTIONS CANADA May 2, 2011

Conservatives win the election ...

...but I'm happy with the NDP results and glad that our city still Liberal.

Confused with what just happened!

 

After 2 minories governments, The Conservatives win a majority with 167 seats;

The Liberals end up with 34 seats (lost 43), a huge lost and disapointment;

While the NDP - New Democratic Party was the surprise, by winning  a record 103 seats, becoming the Official oposition.

Kingston and The Islands:

NDP-New Democrat. Party	Daniel Beals	13,009	21.5
Conservative	Alicia Gordon	21,189	35.0
Liberal	Ted Hsu	23,840	39.3
Green Party	Eric Walton	2,561	4.2

Democracy :

is a form of government in which all citizens have an equal say in the decisions that affect their lives



Canadians will be at the hands of a Conservative Government for the next 4 years. For better or for worse, their got a mandate... We gave them a blank check to make the rules/changes as they please.

The good thing... The New Democratic Party will be our voice that won't let policies be voted without raising a finger... a reminder that poor and middle class have a voice.

I DIDN'T VOTE CONSERVATIVE HARPER!